JERSEY JAMBALAYA: How to Celebrate Hudson County’s New Orleans Connections This Fat Tuesday

“There is a New Orleans city accent…that is hard to distinguish from the accent of Hoboken, Jersey City and Astoria, where the Al Smith inflection, extinct in Manhattan, has taken refuge. The reason, as you might expect, is that the same stocks that brought the accent to Manhattan imposed it on New Orleans.”

Taken from the preface to A Confederacy of Dunces, the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel that has been embraced as an emblematic tale of New Orleans’ character and distinctiveness, author John Kennedy Toole later refers to Mrs. Reilly’s manner of speech as “that accent that occurs south of New Jersey only in New Orleans, that Hoboken near the Gulf of Mexico.”

Of course this time of year reminds us just how much we miss Hoboken’s Oddfellows Rest (80 River Street), who used to throw one of the biggest Mardi Gras festivals in the entire NY Metro Area. It was Hoboken St. Patrick’s Day packed into one tight room—complete with beads, bands, gumbo… and Hurricanes, of course (LIMIT: TWO).

Oddfellows Rest… In Peace

Alas, they turned out the Hurricane Lamps in Oddfellows back in 2013, but there is still plenty to be found around our area…

–Antique Bar & Bakery‘s Chef Paul Gerard spent some time in the Big Easy… “Come for dinner, dig great music, have a taste of N’awlins flavor, and treat yourself to a Tuesday Hurricane!”